Oops, I did it again…

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Looks like things are getting awkward for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Jr. Turns out Trump’s buddy has some Russian connections that might just put him in a bit of a pickle. It goes a little something like this: The Commerce Secretary has some investments in a shipping firm he used to run called Navigator Holdings. The problem here is that this particular shipping firm has ties to some people that are subject to U.S. sanctions. One of those ties is none other than Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. Mr. Ross knew that he was supposed to unload all kinds of holdings that could potentially be a conflict of interest once he took office. And he did. Mostly. Just not really with this one. To be fair, Mr. Ross has a lot of partnerships and it’s those partnerships that retain a significant stake in Navigator Holdings. But still. It’s a problem, even if there’s nothing necessarily illegal about his ties to this shipping firm since he didn’t disclose those ties in the first place. This new development, along with tons of other juicy information, came courtesy of the leaked documents known as the “Paradise Papers” from the Bermuda-based law firm, Appleby. As for Mr. Ross, that’s not the only reason he’s been making headlines today. Apparently, on those very disclosure forms, where Mr. Ross neglected to mention his dubious Russian ties, he also neglected to mention that he isn’t a billionaire. Not to say that he’s a pauper. Far from it. However, his estimated assets are less than $700 million, not the $2 billion he said he’s worth. Even worse, for Ross’s ego anyway, is that he’s getting dropped from Forbes 400 wealthiest list, because let’s face it, $700 million just doesn’t cut it.

Typical…

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Valeant is the big kahuna making good waves on Wall Street with an earnings beat that sent the stock up 15% today. Much of that had to do with a 6% increase across its divisions not to mention the boost it got from unloading some of its debt. The company picked up $3.69 per share on a $1.3 billion profit. But that wasn’t the only reason for the boost. Remember Addyi? It’s the drug that was dubbed the “female viagra” and Valeant bought it from Sprout Pharmaceuticals around two years ago for about $1 billion. Problem is, the deal had been bleeding money since the beginning. Now, two years later, Valeant actually gave Sprout shareholders $25 million just to take the drug back and put it back in business. But that was only after Sprout sued Valeant because it felt the drugmaker wasn’t marketing the drug well. In all fairness to Valeant however, plenty of medical experts just weren’t that into the drug. Because, besides saying that the drug wasn’t that effective, they also felt that potential users wouldn’t be inclined to taking Addyi given that there was a risk of fainting. Yes, fainting. In fact, the fainting would occur following alcohol consumption while taking the drug. I’m pretty sure anyone could see why that would be a problem.

Weight a minute…

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Oprah Winfrey seems to have the Midas touch, at least with Weight Watchers, as the stock rallied today way over 20% to 54.43, its highest price in four years. Revenue numbers were also ridiculously impressive, coming in at almost $324 million, a 15% increase over last year’s revenue during this period. But back to Oprah. The media titan bought a hefty chunk of the company two years ago and will once again grace Weight Watchers ads. Besides the Oprah effect, the weight-loss company put some major thought into both its digital operations and marketing campaign, which apparently paid off given the fact that the company increased its subscribers by 18% to 3.4 million. Here’s the fun part: Analysts thought the company would do pretty good anyway, bringing in 51 cents per share. But Weight Watchers did better than pretty good, adding 67 cents per share on a $45 million profit. That, by the way, was a $10 million increase from last year at this time. Which kind of has me starting to think about all the companies that good use Oprah on their boards. Twitter, maybe? Oh, and did I mention that Weight Watchers also raised it full year earnings outlook? Indeed it did and now, instead of expecting to earn between $1.57 and $1.67, it now expects to make between $1.77 and $1.83. And if that’s not impressive enough for you, consider that shares of Weight Watchers are up 360% just for 2017.